At two o’clock in the morning she was in the supper-room:  a fairly late hour for a young woman supposed to be leading a quiet life.  The food set before her would not have been prescribed for a tender young creature who was dieting.  She was supping riotously on stuffed olives.  Her companion was a young gentleman from the army.  They sat beneath a huge palm.  The tables were crowded together rather closely.

She chanced to look across at the little table to her right, and she saw a young man—­a young man with light hair almost ripe enough to be auburn.

With a smothered “Oh!” she dropped the olive poised between her fingers, and as she did so, he looked across and saw her and exclaimed: 

“Well, I’ll be—­”

He came over, almost upsetting two tables in his impetuous course.  She expected to see him jump over them.

He seized her hand and gazed at her in grinning delight, and the young gentleman from the army went into total eclipse.

XII

THE GOVERNOR CABLES

“I don’t believe it.  It’s too good to be true.  I am in a trance.  It isn’t you, is it?”

And he was still holding her hand.

“Yes—­it is.”

“The Princess—­ah—?”

“Kalora.”

“That’s it.  I was so busy thinking of you after I left your cute little country that I couldn’t remember the name.  I thought of ‘calico’ and ‘Fedora’ and ‘Kokomo’ and a lot of names that sounded like it, but I knew I was wrong. Kalora—­Kalora—­I’ll remember that.  I knew it began with a ‘K.’  But what in the name of all that is pure and sanctified are you doing in the land of the free?”

“You invited me to come.  Don’t you remember?  You urged me to come.”

“That’s why you notified me as soon as you arrived, isn’t it?  How long have you been here?”

“I forget—­three months—­four months.  Surely you have seen my name in the papers.  Every morning you may read a full description of what Princess Kalora of Morovenia wore the night before.  For a simple and democratic people you are rather fond of high-sounding titles, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t read the papers, because I’m always afraid I’ll find something about myself.  They don’t describe my costumes, however.  They simply say that I am trying to blow up and scuttle the ship of State.  But this has nothing to do with your case.  It is customary, when you accept an invitation, to let the host know something about it.  In other words, why didn’t you drop me a line?”

“I will confess—­the whole truth—­since you have been candid enough to admit that you had forgotten my name.  I tried to find you, through the Legation.  I described you, but—­your name—­please tell me your name again?  You mentioned it, that day in the garden.  Popova promised to go to the hotel and get it for me, but we were bundled away in such a hurry.”